Only 05 - Autumn Lover

restless. Knowing a sportin’ gal come with the ranch will settle them some.”
    “What in the name of God are you talking about?” Elyssa asked, her voice thinning.
    “Well, ya ain’t leaving the ranch, an’ ya ain’t the marrying kind, so thet leaves the sportin’ life, don’t it?”
    Gaylord slapped his thigh hard enough to raise dust.
    “Mighty fine life,” he crowed. “Migh-ty fine!”
    The mule’s ears swiveled, then resumed tracking the dogs that were circling fifty feet out from the men, barking wildly.
    Elyssa stared at the Culpepper who was crowing like a tone-deaf rooster.
    “I tole Ab ol’ Gaylord would get this ranch for the boys an’ not raise the kind of ruckus thet brings them Yankee soldier boys on the run.”
    Without warning Gaylord stopped congratulating himself on his cleverness and looked Elyssa over with a blunt sexual calculation that turned her blood to ice.
    “An’ here Ab is always funnin’ ’cuz he thinks ol’ Gaylord is slow and dumb like a stump,” Gaylord said.
    Elyssa caught herself just as she would have agreed with him.
    “Ab’s always sayin’ how Pappy’s juice was just plumb wore out when he finally got me on Turner’s littlest gal. Lordy, she was a fighter for such a young’un. Ab still smiles when he thinks on it. Course, it were his first gal. Pappy was just breakin’ her in like for him.”
    Dimly Elyssa realized she was holding her breath. She forced herself to breathe. At the same time she worked not to understand what Gaylord Culpepper was saying.
    The mule walked closer to the paddock fence, urged by its rider.
    “Hope ya got stayin’ power,” Gaylord said. “Me an’ the boys is plumb ready.”
    Warily Elyssa backed away from the fence. A show of courage was one thing. Foolhardiness was quite another.
    Only a fool would stay within reach of Gaylord Culpepper.
    “Now, don’t go to backin’ up,” Gaylord complained. “I ain’t gonna throw ya an’ mount ya right off. I just wanna get a feel of them teats. They shore look—”
    “No,” Elyssa said harshly.
    “Thet don’t sound friendly.”
    With shocking speed, Gaylord shot off the mule’s back and onto the paddock fence. Elyssa barely got beyond range of his long arm in time to avoid his grasping fingers.
    Leopard reared and flattened his ears, plainly warning Gaylord what would happen if he came into the paddock.
    Gaylord got back on his mule and looked at the stud.
    “Folks say this ’un is a killer,” he said.
    Elyssa said nothing.
    “Huh. Well, Ab had a mind to ride him, but he ain’t here an’ I am, and I be plain pantin’ for a feel of them teats. Call him off ’fore I kill him.”
    Gaylord might have talked in slow rhythms, but therewas nothing slow about the way he reached for his six-gun.
    “No!” Elyssa cried.
    Behind her a rifle fired, drowning out her cry. The bullet landed between the mule’s front feet, startling it into rearing.
    Gaylord stuck in the saddle with the same ease that he had reached for his gun.
    “Holster that gun or die,” Hunter said.
    Elyssa barely recognized Hunter’s voice. There was no emotion in it, simply a cold assurance of death.
    The silence was so complete that she could hear the sound of Gaylord’s gun being returned to the holster.
    There was a shout from one of the men behind Gaylord. He lifted his hand slowly, waving them off.
    “I was just funnin’,” Gaylord said plaintively to Elyssa.
    But there was nothing plaintive about the calculation in his pale blue eyes. They searched the darkness where the door to Leopard’s stall was.
    Elyssa looked too.
    Hunter was invisible.
    “Fun’s over,” Hunter said flatly. “Ride out and don’t come back. If I see you or your men on Ladder S land, I’ll shoot you on sight.”
    With a soundless prayer, Elyssa backed slowly toward the barn. She took care not to get between the open stall door and Gaylord Culpepper.
    Gaylord swore and shifted in the saddle.
    “Now, don’t go to hurryin’ off,” he said. He looked at Elyssa with pale, predatory eyes. “We ain’t done yet, not nearly.”
    “You’re done,” Hunter said.
    “Where’d ya come from, son?” Gaylord asked.
    “Hell.”
    “Huh. Well, it’s plain as dirt ya don’t know what’sneedful for a man hopin’ to breathe tomorrow’s air.”
    “Keep that hand clear of your six-gun or tomorrow won’t ever come for you,” Hunter said.
    Gaylord looked at his right hand as though surprised to find it creeping up on